Adriana M Soaita Centre for Housing Research, University of St Andrews

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1 Adriana M Soaita Centre for Housing Research, University of St Andrews

2 The meaning of home in Romania Views from urban owner-occupiers On-line First The Journal of Housing and the Built Environment

3 What are Romanian flat-owners and self-builders meanings of home? However, why does it matter? On-line First The Journal of Housing and the Built Environment

4 Socialist large housing estates Post-socialist suburbanisation Top-down Collective Undersized Overcrowded Good facilities Tenant mentality Bottom-up Detached Large Under-occupied Lack of facilities Pro-active agency

5 What is a home? Multidimensional concept Physical structure Social unit Territory of self Financial asset Home qualities Privacy & comfort Autonomy & control Ontological security Heaven and Woe

6 What is a home? Multidimensional concept Physical structure Territory of self Social unit Financial asset Home qualities Privacy & comfort Autonomy & control Ontological security Heaven and Woe Special kind of place Space/place continuum Space Thinned-out place Thick place Home Homemaking Space individualisation Meaningful activities Social engagement

7 What is a home? Multidimensional concept Special kind of place Ideological construct Physical structure Territory of self Social unit Financial asset Home qualities Privacy & comfort Autonomy & control Ontological security Heaven and Woe Space/place continuum Space Thinned-out place Thick place Home Homemaking Space individualisation Meaningful activities Social engagement Ideologies of home ownership (field) Housing forms Tenure rights Financial terms Homeowners ideologies (habitus) Meanings Values Practices

8 What is a home? Linguistic differences Home Noun Dwelling, abode Home ownership Acasa Adverb Casa, locuinta Dwelling ownership

9 24 interviews with flat-owners (28 respondents) 24 interviews with self-builders (32 respondents)

10 Porous borders Expanding outside to the neighbourhood, city, region, country 1 Family Metaphors The most important / sacred thing in the world; Everything; Our entire universe; The reason for life; The vital cell of life/society; Your life; A single ALL; A small church; The country in small

11 2 Comfort & wellbeing Peace When you go out, there is the battlefield! While home is the peace, the place for meditation, everything you could desire (m, 36, self-builder). Relaxation & understanding A place where you come to rest Coming home, everything seems easier! There is help, there is understanding. Home is the place where you relax, play with your children (f, 32, flat-owner).

12 3 Emotional territory of identity Object-memory Home is rather as an atmosphere because nothing has changed in fact, I mean the atmosphere. This atmosphere has always been the same! All these things surrounding us, this lamp, this armchair This painting, see, was bought in 1979 when we got married And so everything we have here is just as it was at the beginning (f, 51, flat-owner).

13 4 Control and agency Control Because you can t be yourself anywhere else! To be yourself, to do what you want without asking anyone for permission: may I take this, may I use that? Only at home I can do what I please! (f, 19, block resident) Ownership He did everything himself! He took down the wall between the lobby and the kitchen, laid tiles, painted! After his day job, he worked until midnight! But how beautiful it is now, new, modern! (m, 40, flat-owner)

14 5 Hybrid (a structure & emotions) Extreme overcrowding Nowadays, this flat means our home. Before we were too overcrowded, too dependent on others, and others dependent on us! You could not make your life, it was no space! (f, 74, flat-o). Nostalgia Perhaps it is too much to say a tragedy, but it is still an issue for us who spent our childhood in the country side, in freedom and are now obliged to live in blocks. (m, 55, flat-o). Displacement I still cannot say home here, where I have been living for 20 years, I still go only to my flat. I cannot say home, in my head I still am, I still dream myself back in my house! (m, 71, flat-owner).

15 6 (Ontological) security Welfare security As this represents wealth, it gives me security, it makes me feel better as, whatever happens, I can sell it and we are safe, my children are safe, I am safe! (f, 31, self-builder). Anchor to the natural world A rural home comprises land and forests. In the city, home is only a shelter but in villages, it s linked to cosmos as seasons go by (m, 54, flat-owner).

6 Ontological security Parental home It is a matrix, an archetype. Is where you open up your eyes, where you form your spirit, where you receive ideas from and meanings (m, 54, flat-owner).

16 6 Ontological security Parental home It is a matrix, an archetype. Is where you open up your eyes, where you form your spirit, where you receive ideas from and meanings (m, 54, flat-owner). Sense of life Of course, everyone must have a home! Everyone who knows why one lives on this earth! If one hasn t, what could I say? Why do you live? What is your sense of life? (m, 56, self-builder).

17 space thin place 54 dedicated homemakers thick place Shelter 2 flat-owners male aged 70s Homey space 4 flat-owners male aged 50s Sense of life 1 flat-owner 5 self-builders Compensatory homemaking strategies Across home s qualities Between residences Time-space management

18 Conclusions Difference between groups Flat-owners and self-builders do not significantly differ in their meanings of home but detached houses rather than flats facilitate more fully their appropriation Divergence from literature Not a financial instrument Weak sense of privacy No meanings of autonomy (attached to dwelling) Central sense of ontological security

19 Recommendations Homes not just flats Investment to increase estates liveability Connection to nature Improve green space in the communist estates Improve / create green networks of parks and squares Future research Critical perspectives in relation to disability, aging, non-homeowners, unsafe homes and ethnicity.

20 Thank you

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